He Was A Bold Man That First Ate An Oyster

I am an eternal optimist. It will never change no matter how long I am single or how long that I dream improbable dreams. Forever I will be this way. I am Jay Gatsby, without wealth, standing on a dock in West Egg staring across the harbor at the green light of an East Egg peer. I'm even more optimistic when I drink. "The world is your oyster," would be the vodka and oyster bar I'd open if I had the money to do so. I don't know where, but somewhere. I've been told by people that I didn't ask that it wouldn't do well in my hometown. Some people say I'd have to sell clams, too, or fish — if not chicken or pizza — in order to stay in business. And I'd also have to have beer and other liquors besides vodka. You can't exclusively sell vodka and oysters, they invariably scoff at the idea. But I've never been one to listen to naysayers.

The more I drink, the more attainable everything in the world is, including love and happiness, and that oyster bar, which I think of often when I drink. It is like the crown jewel of my thoughts. Damn tomorrow. Damn the money that I spend. It is well worth it for the few hours of euphoric bliss where I get to believe in the impossible. The world is too depressing to be sober all the time. People who don't drink are boring. They don't have any interesting stories to tell, and even if they are good company, they go home early and drink their milk and go to bed and watch TV. They don't ever confess anything outrageous, or show their human side. I like to hear people's secrets. Their dirty laundry. Who they hate. Who they love. I like to hear people laugh like they haven't laughed since they were a kid. Being drunk is like regressing to childhood. It is time in a bottle. A little drunk you are 13. A little more you become 9. Then so on and so forth until you get so drunk you are a baby again. I never go that far, though. I usually settle at 12. 

It's hard to love an oyster. They're damn ugly things, if you've never seen one. They have lots of eyes, but it's best not to think of their eyes when eating them. You can't look at them and have any feelings for them, I'm convinced, and it is said they don't feel anything at all. They're alive when you eat them in the halfshell, or you can eat them poached, boiled, smoked, fried, steamed, broiled or stewed, or served in some fancy way like Oysters Rockefeller — which would be my house specialty. Above the bar, I would have a menu with all the different ways they can be served. I thought to give the place a nautical theme, but then decided against it as being too clichéd, and thought better of a twenties theme. A speakeasy sort of oyster bar. Perhaps, I would serve other liquors and beer. But I'd be particular about it and there'd be no other food than oysters. 

I dream this with the grin that is on my face right now as I sit in a midget strip club on campus that I didn't know to exist before tonight. I wandered into it somehow. It is a nice place. There is a lot of red velvet and higher-class clientele. Men who look like doctors and lawyers. But I sit alone at a table in front of a red hurricane lamp and marvel that it exists. And for a moment, I wondered how I got here because the last thing I knew I had a date that was going pretty well from what I remember. She was a beautiful lady and we were going from one posh bar to bar with a group of her friends when I got separated. My phone was dead and of no use. But then I recalled. I was bored by one of her friend's incessant dramatic ramblings and I saw a midget in white leather walking and so I pealed off the group and followed her into here like Alice followed the White Rabbit. 

It has been years since I've been to a strip club. They are silly places. They're like diners with plastic food where you can sit and stare at cooks pretending to flip what is a rubber burger or silicone fries. Glass fruits in a fruit bowl. And despite not consuming a thing, you are expected to pay for it. Of course, you don't have to pay. You can just sit there and have an overpriced drink, but it is considered uncouth and whatever waitress approaches you to sell you that artificial bill of fare, will surely glower at you for offering nothing but a goofy grin when she offers you a lap dance or a trip to the champagne room. But these were midgets, human chihuahuas, and I was intoxicated enough (around age 14), to be interested. Nothing was half-price, as I heard someone ask. 

"Half the size, twice the pleasure, sugar," one of the strippers joked. 

They didn't speak differently. I expected they'd have higher-pitched voices, but their voices were the same as anyone else's. Then a girl named Anastasia, or so she said, sat next to me and we talked for an hour. Our conversation was only interrupted by her periodically excusing herself to solicit other men for a dance, but she came back each time. She was Russian. She told me her real name, but I forgot it and didn't ask again. She was a real wet blanket. She kept going on and on about Ukraine and Russia. I told her the US was money laundering and wasn't interested in peace because there is no profit in peace, and she offered me a free lap dance for speaking the truth. I accepted because it would have been insulting not to. Then, annoyingly, she had me tell one of the bouncers what I told her and she stood behind me and parroted everything I said. 

"See! He knows! Money laundering! Corruption! They're goddamn Nazis!"

But the bearded mountainous bouncer who had gray slicked-back hair, lip rings, and tattoos on his face, shook his head and scoffed, saying I didn't know what the fuck I was talking about and my buzz quickly dried up and it was too much to drink there so I left and ended up finding my date and her friends in a bar down the street and we made out in the back of the bar while some live band played typical passive-aggressive alternative/emo cover music. I was doing pretty well when the band began playing "I Will Possess Your Heart," by Deathcab for Cutie with the long bass intro and as my hand turned into Lewis and Clark in a rendezvous with her Sacagewea and our tongues wallowed around in each other's mouths like two tireless sumo wrestlers, all I could think of was how bizarre it felt when Anastasia gave me that lap dance. The rest of the night went as expected and I woke up home in bed on Friday morning with a sore tongue realizing I had to work but how I'd make some excuse to go home early to sleep — but how I never would sleep because something else would present itself — vodka, likely. 

My date left me a note on the table which read in beautiful and careful caligraphy, "I will possess your heart." I stared at it as I ate my Cap'n Crunch wondering if it was a warning or meant to be romantic in some way. I was completely sober when I turned on the TV and listened to the news and there was more bullshit about Ukraine and George Floyd and Chinese spy balloons and some wildfire in California and some books being banned and others being edited because they were offensive in some way and some drag queens reading books in public libraries to little kids. And two people were arguing on some other channel about sports and who was better than who and a bunch of women were bickering on another and on and on until I turned it off, regretting having turned it on at all. People everywhere have their noses shoved up everyone else's asshole as much as humanly possible in search of drama. Drama is the world's obsession. It permeates the news, sports, relationships, social media, and the workplace. It is nearly impossible to avoid, even if you just want to drink, make love, and dream about owning an oyster bar. 

  

About an hour into work I got bored and called the Russian consulate in Washington DC and said I would like to defect. I heard Putin's last speech and I was impressed. I thought his insight into the direction America is going was unfortunately and painfully accurate. I was surprised when they answered. I was even more surprised when the Russian US Ambassador got on the phone himself, cleared his throat, and spoke to me directly. He had a deep voice, as I expected. He left out certain uneccesary words. I could hear him jingle a glass, which I imagined was Stoli. He asked me all sorts of questions. Some were easy to understand, others were more difficult because of the thick accent coupled with my terrible phone service. How I long for a corded phone. 

He said it was strange that I called when I did because they were all just sitting around talking about a good PR move and how a flock of American defectors might be just that. It would signify the end of western civilization, he intemperately proclaimed in such a grandoise way that I practically believed him. He demanded I take a picture and send it to him. I had one from the night before just before I went into that midget strip club and my phone died. I was smiling like a goofball. He asked if I had a beard and told me to shave it if so. "Beards are scrubby pretend manliness," he stated. He asked me if I drank Bud Light, craft beer, or White Claw. Hell no, I said. He asked me what I did for a living. "I'm a social worker," I admitted. He groaned. "I'm an unhappy social worker," I quickly added. "But I am a writer as well."

"Oh? Yes? What have you written, comrade?" 

I told him. He didn't seem too impressed that I wrote love stories, but he said he could work with it, which I assumed meant he would lie and say I was an esteemed American writer who has seen the error of the American way of life. The handwriting on the wall. That sort of thing. He said someone would check out my credentials and call me back directly. Then he asked why I wanted to defect. I wanted to tell him about the strip club the night before and all that. The TV this morning. But I didn't want to go on and on. I didn't want to drag Anastasia into it, especially since I couldn't remember her real name. But then I wondered if she might have got some sort of referral bonus. Then that thought was beaten by the thought as to why the hell she was even here if she loved her country so damn much. So I gave a routine answer, as though I was reading it from a card. 

"We are a sham of our former self. We died in the eighties. I'm not sure when. But I'm pretty sure it was when that pencil dick, George H.W. Bush, took office. He was a CIA man, you know."

He chuckled. "Yes. I know this — pencil dick."

I went on and on. I elaborated of my abhorrence of the CIA and the politicization of the FBI. The murder of Michael Hastings. Chiquita Banana. The Bay of Pigs. Operation Northwoods. MKUltra. We spoke about Oswald and the Kennedy assasination, of corrupt and stolen elections, both 2000 and 2020, to January 6 being pathetic orchestrated political theater, and of Ukraine being a front for arms deals and a Black Rock contract the way Iraq was for Haliburton. All the things Anastasia and I had discussed, and later the meathead bouncer. Then we shared Brittney Griner/WNBA jokes. 

He was impressed and surprised with my knowledge and open-mindedness. He said he thought all Americans were "androgynous dimwits who watch America's Got Talent or football in a catatonic-like stupor, drooling, in fast food comas, wearing pajamas to Walmart, soft as Pilsbury Doughboy." It was the sort of conversation that could have lasted all night. Over some Stoli. He asked if I was married or if I had a significant other. No, I admitted. I have no one — signifanct anyway. I thought of that note my date had left me. I could hear the bass intro to that song pounding in my ear drum. 

"They're plenty beautiful women for you in Russia, comrade. Russia has more beautiful women per capita than any place in world." He went on and on like he was a car salesman trying to sell me a used Buick with low miles. He said he would have an associate send me a visa application and he would call me back tomorrow. Before he hung up, he asked me "Who is greatest writer of all time?"

"Nabokov, of course."

"Good, comrade! I phone you tomorrow."

I realized I was walking in the footsteps of Lee Harvey Oswald. But Lee already had his beautiful Russian bride when he was framed for the assassination of JFK. Maybe I was being groomed for something similar. Maybe he wasn't really the Russian American Ambassador at all, rather, he was the CIA pulling the wool over my eyes. I wonder if Oswald thought the same thoughts. If he had an "Oh, shit" moment when it was too late to turn back — enter Jack Ruby. 

The next day I was working when he called. I was just thinking about Anastasia. How she had a tattoo, a tramp stamp, that read, "May life forgive us for..." something. I coudn't remember the rest of what it said, but it was written in the same sort of fancy caligraphy my date had written that note. I was drudging away in my sad social service office with bleak oatmeal-colored walls and flourescent lights like those in a pet shop. I was a middle man doling out government money for people having hard times or who were incapable of, or not interested in, self-sufficiency. I was laundering tax dollars. 

I wasn't a paid writer because I made no effort to be. Maybe I could be, maybe I couldn't — probably the latter. After all, I wasn't writing about the pretend social justice issue de jour, or my gay uncle Marv, or some "courageous" person having a sex change, or of the plight of anyone or anything. I was writing love stories. Heterosexual love stories that are sometimes bizarre and sometimes filthy and often offensive. That would not make good Hallmark movies at all. No publisher would touch me with a thirty-foot pole.

"Come to DC," the Ambassador insisted. It was 12 noon, but I heard the same sound of the glass jingling as I heard the night before. "We put you on plane to Mother Russia."

But then I suddenly realized that it wasn't so easy. I hadn't even told him about my dream of owning an oysyer bar. Could that even happen in Russia? As much as I might want to get on that plane and leave America to see what the East has to offer a fellow like me — perhaps a cabin in tranquil woods free of idiocy and bureaucracy; free of having to tell the IRS how much they took from me all year so they can decide if they want to take more; as much as I admire the culture and detest the cultural degeneration of my own where people walk around like sloths and pretend to be women who are men and men who are women and advocate to allow children to mutilate their bodies through irreversible hormonal therapy and sex change surgeries; where people find it necessary to define their pronouns, irritatingly; and where people listen to the annoying autotune of I Heart Radio just because it is new; where they blare music from their shitty rattling cars with purposefully loud mufflers killing my ears and fucking my peace; where they vote for corrupt politicians who blatantly enrich themselves while in office because all good Swifties vote left — what kind of person would I be if I went? If I left my family on this sinking ship simply because I didn't favor the current tide and couldn't see beyond it? I'd be one of those nefarious men who snuck aboard a Titanic lifeboat in drag — which was shameful back then when morality was such a thing. All these thoughts warmed themselves like gas station hotdogs in the rotisserie of my American head.

I heard his glass jingle again as he said, "Hello? Hello? Comrade?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Ambassador. I can't leave. A man must go down with his ship."

He leaned back in his leather chair that groaned and he exhaled and cleared his rusky throat. The ice jingled again, which I considered could be some sort of mind control mechanism that just didn't take. "I understand. Americans are wishy-washy. But, I understand no less. A man must go down with ship. Those are true words you speak. For us all." 

"And there could be another revolution. Of which, I'd love to be a part. Like Thomas Paine."

"Thomas Paine. An inevitability," he agreed. "Good luck to you, patriot Peacock! Hopefully, CIA don't kill you."

He hung up the phone and that was that. Then I thought of two things, perhaps prophetically. Jonathan Swift's quote about oysters, which I planned to engrave on the mirror of the oyster bar someday that is already in full service in my mind — "He was a bold man that first ate an oyster." 

Then, the other thing, which tumbled in directly after it. It was the face of that bouncer and the rest of Anastasia's tramp stamp. In beautiful caligraphy. It came to mind as she straddled my lap like a lithesome gymanst with her two little hands on the parrallel bars of my legs. It appeared for only a second, but I suppose I was meant to read it. I was meant to be reminded, one way or another — "May life forgive us for the times we didn't live it." 

So may it.